Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Review: "Organized Simplicity" aimed at families

By Tiffany Young

While their were portions of "Organized Simplicity" that someone single could glean from this book, it was very much geared towards those with more than one bedroom and more than one person in their life.
(I have a significant other, but since we don't live together many of the discussions we might have about our home goals are moot.)

A few times, the author says if you are single just reframe the question, but for the most part, I felt it was difficult to do.

All that to say, there were some takeaways that could be gained from reading the book even if I wasn't the target audience. If you have debt, she goes into detail on how she and her family got out of debt so they could live the life they wanted to live. She also goes room by room and has the reader clean and organize each one. I just have a single bedroom, so this, too was not incredibly useful, but if you are overwhelmed with scheduling time to organize, she has you go through each room on a daily schedule for 10 days.

I would say that this book is aimed at a beginner to simplifying as many of the concepts are fairly general.
I did enjoy the reference pages and the appendix, which had checklists to fill out.

Her use of a notebook was a bit more detailed than many of the other concepts, and I am going to try using one, although I am very much an out-of-sight out-of-mind kind of gal, so putting something away in a notebook rarely works for me, since I forget it is even there. The only way I've found to avoid this is by leaving the notebook out, which is clutter in and of itself.

I would recommend this book to parents who want to make goals with their children for having a happier, simpler home.